A BUS company has said that a casually employed driver will no longer be used on its routes after a passenger complained about the way he spoke to a disabled man.

Nick Gadd from Urchfont, near Devizes, contacted Chippenham based bus company Faresaver after he says the driver refused to help put down a ramp to allow wheelchair access to the bus and then became abusive.

Mr Gadd, 44, is a regular user of the X72 bus which goes to and from Urchfont to Devizes and often helps his neighbour when he also uses the bus.

He said: "The Faresaver drivers are usually very helpful but on Saturday when we caught the 5.05pm bus from Devizes I was astounded when the bus driver refused to put the disabled ramp down for a man in a wheelchair saying it wasn't part of his job and he didn't have to allow the disabled gentleman on.

"So as any normal person would I lowered the ramp allowing the passenger onto the bus, much to the driver's annoyance, so much so that he then verbally abused the disabled passenger and attempted to phone his boss to try to refuse service. The driver then continued in his rant of cursing and swearing in front of other passengers including children."

He claimed that when the bus arrived in Urchfont the driver was once again rude and aggressive towards both him and the disabled man.

Mr Gadd later rang the bus company to complain and was told that Faresaver would examine CCTV footage of the journey and get back to him.

On Monday the company rang him to apologise and tell him the driver, who was used on a casual basis to fill in for full-time employees, would not be used in the future.

A spokesman for Faresaver said: "On Saturday a passenger complained about the way they had been spoken to by the driver of a Faresaver bus.

"The incident started when the driver declined to deploy the manual wheelchair ramp. An able bodied companion of the wheelchair user knew how to and was able to deploy the ramp which to some extent resolved the issue.

"Some heated words followed. We believe there may have been a previous encounter between the passenger and the driver.

"In any case, the behaviour of our driver was below that which we would expect. The matter has been dealt with internally.

"We apologise to any passengers affected by this incident."